• 文献标题:   Deconstructing proton transport through atomically thin monolayer CVD graphene membranes
  • 文献类型:   Article
  • 作  者:   CHATURVEDI P, MOEHRING NK, CHENG PF, VLASSIOUK I, BOUTILIER MSH, KIDAMBI PR
  • 作者关键词:  
  • 出版物名称:   JOURNAL OF MATERIALS CHEMISTRY A
  • ISSN:   2050-7488 EI 2050-7496
  • 通讯作者地址:  
  • 被引频次:   8
  • DOI:   10.1039/d2ta01737g EA APR 2022
  • 出版年:   2022

▎ 摘  要

Selective proton (H+) permeation through the atomically thin lattice of graphene and other 2D materials offers new opportunities for energy conversion/storage and novel separations. Practical applications necessitate scalable synthesis via approaches such as chemical vapor deposition (CVD) that inevitably introduce sub-nanometer defects, grain boundaries and wrinkles, and understanding their influence on H+ transport and selectivity for large-area membranes is imperative but remains elusive. Using electrically driven transport of H+ and potassium ions (K+) we probe the influence of intrinsic sub-nanometer defects in monolayer CVD graphene across length-scales for the first time. At the micron scale, the areal H+ conductance of CVD graphene (similar to 4.5-6 mS cm(-2)) is comparable to that of mechanically exfoliated graphene indicating similarly high crystalline quality within a domain, albeit with K+ transport (similar to 1.7 mS cm(-2)). However, centimeter-scale Nafion|graphene|Nafion devices with several graphene domains show areal H+ conductance of similar to 339 mS cm(-2) and K+ conductance of similar to 23.8 mS cm(-2) (graphene conductance for H+ is similar to 1735 mS cm(-2) and for K+ it is similar to 47.6 mS cm(-2)). Using a mathematical-transport-model and Nafion filled polycarbonate track etched supports, we systematically deconstruct the observed orders of magnitude increase in H+ conductance for centimeter-scale CVD graphene. The mitigation of defects (>1.6 nm), wrinkles and tears via interfacial polymerization results in a conductance of similar to 1848 mS cm(-2) for H+ and similar to 75.3 mS cm(-2) for K+ (H+/K+ selectivity of similar to 24.5) via intrinsic sub-nanometer proton selective defects in CVD graphene. We demonstrate atomically thin membranes with significantly higher ionic selectivity than state-of-the-art proton exchange membranes while maintaining comparable H+ conductance. Our work provides a new framework to assess H+ conductance and selectivity of large-area 2D membranes and highlights the role of intrinsic sub-nanometer proton selective defects for practical applications.